


You're Part of Who I Am

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 08:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14786639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: When Evie starts to crumble under Auradon Prep's scorning of her beautiful blue, Mal takes matters into her own box of hair dye





	You're Part of Who I Am

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

Mal and Evie were the only two in Auradon. Okay, maybe Carlos  _technically_  counted with the nest of snow white sitting atop his head, but Mal and Evie were the only two with the truly crazy hair—the school’s words, not their own. Mal didn’t see her purple hair as crazy, and she didn’t see Evie’s blue as such either. Say whatever horrible truths about the VKs’ home you wanted to say, but when it came to self-expression, The Isle reigned supreme.   
  
If a grown woman wanted to putter around a castle in pointed horns and a cape, she puttered. A pirate captain’s son wanted to don some eyeliner and a glinting hook? So be it. For crying out loud, Mal and Evie came from a land where a guy had fire for hair, a little blue and purple shouldn’t have raised any fuss.

Evie couldn’t let it roll off her back quite as easily as Mal could. Classmates and teachers and headmistresses alike would subtly and not-so-subtly urge conformity, respectability, “normality”. And what could Evie say, or do? She had a need to please, steadfastly ingrained into every molecule by her mother. The not-so-subtle urging came in the form of sly digs, teasing cracks, some would call it outright bullying if Evie didn’t have her villainess pride and refused to let herself admit to being bullied by the likes of Auradon’s snot-nosed preps.  
  
But while her mother may have had a niche for hearts in boxes, Evie’s heart was in no way under lock and key. She kept it right there at the very forefront of her being, where it was tragically and woefully vulnerable to attacks. Words could hurt her the way they couldn’t hurt Mal, especially when it came to her appearance.  
  
Mal couldn’t believe the rush of anger she felt when she came into the dorm room one day and found Evie flipping through her spellbook. Not angry that Evie was going through it, or even that it was being snooped through at all, but the fact that when she came in close, she loomed over Evie’s shoulder and found her reading through the hair spells.  
  
“Evie.”  
  
Evie had been so concentrated at the task at hand that she didn’t even realize Mal had returned, startled at the sound of her voice.  
  
“Mal, I didn’t know you were here,” Evie quickly closed the spellbook.  
  
“Obviously.”  
  
Mal had heard the talk about them. The points and the whispers, the shaking of heads as each day passed without a natural hair color taking the place of their blue and purple.  
  
“Since when do you not like blue?” Mal asked sternly.  
  
Evie only sighed, hanging her head as she sat at the desk.  
  
“…M, come on. You know what this is about.”  
  
“I know that all your life, the only standard of beauty you’ve ever held yourself to was your own.”  
  
“My mother’s,” Evie corrected ashamedly. “My standard of beauty is only an extension of my mother’s.”  
  
“And did the Evil Queen ever have anything to say about blue hair?”  
  
Evie stayed quiet.  
  
“…I’m just tired of everybody else having something to say,” she eventually whispered.  
  
“And what about what I have to say?”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Evie murmured.  
  
Mal combed her fingers through the back of Evie’s hair, nails lightly scratching at her scalp.  
  
“You’re smarter than this. You know better than to let these people get to you.”  
  
“M, I’m not like you,” Evie shook her head. “I don’t have this impenetrable dragon skin where nothing affects me. People laugh, they point, they scowl, they talk behind my back, they say it to my face. Things get to me.”  
  
“…You think seeing you desperately flipping through my spellbook trying to change yourself doesn’t get to  _me?”_  
  
“I’d look good as a brunette,” Evie defeatedly shrugged.  
  
“You’d look better just like this. You’re beautiful.”  
  
Evie froze. Yes, before coming to Auradon Prep, she would’ve been labeled “vain” or “narcissistic” with her high opinions of herself. But even so, when the age-old question of  _“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”_  was asked, it was not herself that was her first thought. Time and time again, it was Mal.  
  
Mal was the most beautiful girl she had ever known in her entire life. And now, the most beautiful girl she’d ever known was standing over her calling  _her_ beautiful.  
  
“…You think I’m beautiful,” Evie breathed. It wasn’t a question. She didn’t think she could stand it if she heard the answer again.  
  
“I have functioning eyes, Evie. And despite what I say, a functioning heart.”  
  
When the most gorgeous girl in the kingdom said you were beautiful, that was typically all there was to it, right?  
  
“…I think  _you’re_ beautiful, Mal.”  
  
It was partly Evie trying to change the subject, partly Evie not even meaning to let that slip out at all.  
  
“Then if we both see each other as beautiful, why are you letting yourself care about what these Auradon preps have to say about us?” Mal asked.  
  
Evie really didn’t have an answer.  
  
“…I’ll be back, E. See you in a little bit,” Mal said.  
  
Evie missed the fingers playing in her hair as soon as they were gone, but Mal simply walked out of the room without another word.  
  
When she came back with a shopping bag an hour later, she found Evie almost exactly as she’d left her, only with a textbook instead of the spellbook.  
  
“What have you got there?” Evie asked, hearing the rustle of the plastic bag in Mal’s hand.  
  
Mal came over to the desk, digging around inside the bag.  
  
“A different kind of magic.”  
  
She put two small boxes on the desk, by Evie’s book. A box of purple hair dye, and a box of blue.  
  
“You know, for a kingdom that likes to diss us for our hair, the store had everything from green to neon orange,” Mal dryly noted.  
  
“I don’t get what this is for,” Evie told her.  
  
“Forget brown. I think you’d look good with a little purple.”  
  
“…You want even  _more_  color in my hair??” Evie said in disbelief.  
  
“And your blue is just so beautiful, I want to try it out for myself.”  
  
“M, you’re crazy. I can’t… _we_ can't—”  
  
“Yes we can, the instructions are on the box,” Mal curiously studied the blue. “So? What do you say?”  
  
“Mal…”  
  
“When has one of my schemes ever let us down?”  
  
Evie breathed out a heavy sigh, and let a shy smile follow.  
  
“…Never.”  
  
Evie found herself suddenly light enough to laugh with Mal at her side, with Mal mixing together their dye because “I’m an artist, I know what I’m doing”. And she did, and was soon enough painting a long streak of purple down the length of Evie’s hair, her gloved fingers ever so careful as she handled the soft strands.  
  
“I like it already,” Mal said with a smug grin.  
  
Evie giggled.  
  
Then Mal looked carefully at herself in the bathroom mirror, painting the blue along a wave of hair at the very front.  
  
“They’re going to hate us for this,” Evie said as they let their color sit.  
  
“Good. You know why they try so hard to hate you? Because you’re different. E? Guess why I care about you so much.”  
  
Evie’s cheeks turned pink.  
  
“…Because I’m different,” she quietly realized.   
  
“Because you’re  _way_ different. The more different you get, the more I like you.”  
  
Evie gave her a playful shove, the both of them laughing. And when the dye was rinsed, and their hair dried, they stood side by side and admired themselves in the mirror.  
  
“…There,” Mal was proud of her handiwork. “Now you have blue and purple hair, and I have blue and purple hair. We’re the same.”  
  
Evie twisted her purple around her finger.  
  
“…It’s beautiful, M.”  
  
“Yeah, you are.”  
  
A deeper shade of pink painted Evie’s cheeks. A very nice compliment to the purple. She turned and let her fingers trail through Mal’s brand-new blue.  
  
“It suits you,” she smiled.  
  
“Well, it’s an amazing color, after all.”  
  
Evie glanced back and forth at their reflections, a warm smile taking over her blush. Blue and purple, purple and blue. Now she and Mal both carried a little piece of each other wherever they went. And Evie suddenly felt more than enough strength to face the hateful lips and judging eyes of Auradon Prep so long as she had a little piece of Mal with her.  
  
“Yeah, M. Very amazing.”


End file.
